Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.

A book without trees: Introducing “Straw Editions” from Canopy

Canopy is a Canadian non-profit environmental group with a vital mission: protecting the world’s forests, species and climate.

As they remind us:

Much of the forests logged in North America wind up in paper, so in 1999 we started out with a focus on the world’s biggest paper buyers. Today we work with hundreds of the forest industry’s consumers to help shape their purchasing policies for a variety of forest products, and provide them with the knowledge they need to meet their business goals and protect our forests in the process.

In an effort to raise awareness and some money for this vital organization, Canopy has partnered with Random House Canada, McClelland & Stewart, Knopf Canada, Cascades Fine Papers, Alberta Innovates, Webcom and Friesens, and authors Yann Martel and Alice Munro to print a limited edition of one of their works on straw paper.

Life of Pi is printed in an edition of 300 signed copies on paper made with 30% totally chlorine free Canadian flax straw and 70% post consumer recycled content while Munro’s Dear Life is printed in an edition of only 50 copies on paper made with 27% totally chlorine free wheat straw, 9% totally chlorine free Canadian flax straw and 64% post consumer recycled content.

I love that both title’s have “Life” in them.

Margret Atwood, one of the grand dames of Canadian arts and letters, also lends her support.

Hard not to get behind these guys.

While we are talking paper here is a look at Thomas Finch’s latest project where he cut up an atlas so each page represented a world map and then layers the pages up “creating different heights for each continent. Each page represents 376,099 tonnes of paper consumed a year, as a result, the higher the stack of pages the more paper is consumed by the continent.”

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.